England Legends - Stuart Pearce

As a festive treat, TheFA.com has a series of seven articles with England Legends, that featured in each of the Senior Team match programmes in 2007. Today it's Under-21s Coach Stuart Pearce;

“That photo of me after that Spain penalty is still the one I’m asked to sign by fans”

Stuart Pearce relives the moment he exorcised his demons against Spain at Euro 96

Stuart Pearce’s England legacy looked to be written in stone when Terry Venables replaced him with Graeme Le Saux as first choice left-back in 1995. He would be forever remembered for that penalty miss against the Germans at Italia 90. But while Lady Luck deserted him on that sultry summer evening in Turin, she also played her hand in his redemption.

Hindsight shows us the 1990 World Cup Semi-Final was a heroic defeat. It was, after all, the greatest achievement of any England side abroad and restored a country’s faith in the national game. But that’s not how it seemed to Pearce at the time. It was his lunge on Thomas Hassler that handed West Germany a free-kick 25 yards from the England goal.

Andreas Brehme’s shot ricocheted off Paul Parker, over the head of Peter Shilton and into the net. Pearce nearly made amends in the second half when his glancing header from a Paul Gascoigne free-kick beat Bodo Illgner in the German goal, but it slid inches wide of the post.

The match went to extra time, then a penalty shoot-out, and with the scores level at 3-3 it was Pearce’s turn. He was one of the favourites to score for England, as Nottingham Forest’s regular penalty taker, but he drove his kick straight down the middle and into Illgner’s trailing legs, then watched it rebound to safety.

“My world collapsed,” says Pearce. “I had been taking penalties for as long as I could remember, but now I’d missed the most important penalty of my life.”

Olaf Thon converted next for Germany, pumping his fists like a cartoon baddie, and Chris Waddle sent England’s final penalty over. Pearce left the field in tears, his head covered with a blue towel. “It was my fault that England were not in the World Cup Final,” he said, despairingly.

Five years later, when he took the call from Terry Venables in the run-up to Euro 96, he surprised a lot of observers and the England Manager himself when he said that he’d be happy to stay in the squad and wait for his chance.

“I could have called it a day, but instead I said that if he wanted to include me in the squad I would meet up with pleasure,” says Pearce. “I think he was taken aback but he praised my attitude and put me in the squad. I had to sit in the stands for almost a year and never got a look in, apart from coming on as sub a couple of times. But playing for England meant so much to me that I wouldn’t give it up if there was any chance of me pulling on that shirt again.”

And when Le Saux suffered a broken leg in December 1995, the door swung open once more for Pearce. Now he was back in the team, it was almost inevitable that England’s fate would again rest on a penalty shoot-out, and after extra time against Spain in the Quarter-Final had petered out without a goal, Pearce went straight up to Venables and told him he wanted to take one. This time he drilled it low past the keeper’s outstretched left arm, and the force of his celebration, as he roared his head off with happiness and relief, has become one of English football’s most iconic images.

“What people have to remember are the circumstances surrounding me even playing in that tournament and all of that joy, relief and passion was released in the moment the ball hit the net,” says Pearce. “All I was thinking when I took the penalty was to hit the ball cleanly and where I wanted it to go. I like pressure and responsibility. I always have done.

“It was completely unlike the one in Turin – when I was walking up to take the Spain kick I knew the whole stadium and the whole country were behind me. Usually the stadium and the noise is a blur, but not on that day at Wembley. The celebration was spontaneous and that photograph of me in the aftermath of the penalty is still the one I’m most asked to sign by fans.”

Five days later he scored from the spot again in the shoot-out against Germany in the Semi-Final, and his smile and his thumbs-up sign were final proof that he’d cleansed himself of that Turin miss.

Pearce had taken the winding back roads to football stardom, rather than the motorway route. The Londoner failed a trial at QPR and had to cut his teeth in the non-league game with Wealdstone, working as an electrician and plumber to pay the bills.

In 1983 he joined the professional ranks with Coventry City, and two years later moved to Nottingham Forest, where he earned the nickname ‘Psycho’. His marauding runs down the left, cannonball free-kicks and heart-on-sleeve playing style won him cult status with England fans and 78 caps. He took his international bow against Brazil in 1987, and soon made the left-back position his own. In 1991, he was made England captain by Graham Taylor.

Another memorable image from Pearce’s long international career is of him wiping blood from his face, following a headbutt from French defender Basile Boli at the 1992 European Championship, before crashing a free-kick against the bar.

Nothing epitomises Stuart Pearce quite so much as that match against Spain though, and that unforgettable moment of redemption. “I was sorry that Graeme Le Saux got injured and missed Euro 96 because I didn’t want to get in by default, but there was a valuable life lesson to be learned from my situation,” he says. “I didn’t give in and was patient, and that brought its own rewards. I would have to say that tournament was the best time I have played football, and that game against Spain stood out on its own.”

Born: 24 April 1962, Hammersmith, London

Clubs: Wealdstone 1982-83; Coventry City 1983-85, 54 apps, 4 goals; Nottingham Forest 1985-97, 522 apps, 88 goals; Newcastle 1997-99, 52 apps, 1 goal; West Ham 1999-2001, 50 apps, 3 goals; Manchester City 2001-02, 43 apps, 3 goals

England: 1987-99, 78 appearances, 5 goals
First cap: 19 May 1987 v Brazil (1-1)
Last cap: 8 September 1999 v Poland (0-0)

England Under-21 Head Coach: Appointed 1 February 2007